Economics of Preservation

One of the goals of Preservation50 is to analyze the economic impact of historic preservation. To meet this goal, we are partnering with Presonomics Open Access Repository (POAR, pronounced like “pour”). POUR is a free online repository that will contain all extant publications related to preservation economics. POAR is a core initiative of Presonomics, a nonprofit organization that promotes the economic benefits of saving historic places. The concept behind POAR is to make it easier for preservation activists to access economic data that can be used as powerful tools in their efforts to win over government officials, developers and property owners. This project requires extensive research and we currently have a team of research interns conducting thorough investigations one state at a time.

We want to make the information from these studies as accessible as possible for the broadest possible swathe of mankind. To that end, we have read every one of these publications so you don’t have to (but they’ll be there if you want to dig in). We then pulled out all of the topics that each publication discusses and even provided a nice, one-sentence summary of each study. We believe that this pre-packaged approach will greatly simplify and empower the preservation advocacy process. Plus, we may even uncover new, previously unknown benefits of preservation by data mining all of this information.

We are deep into the research phase of POAR and we are now planning for funding opportunities to finance the digital construction of the repository itself. We will be applying for grants and asking for donations throughout 2016 and we hope to have funding secured by the beginning of 2017. We are on track to make POAR a fully functional online application by the end of 2017. Donations to POUR can be made through the website.